The Conservative Movement in Judaism: Dilemmas and Opportunities

Chapter 4: Style

69 Chapter 4 Style Social scientists have learned over the years that, along with ideology and institutions, the style of a social movement is at least equally important in determining who will be its adherents. The American Heritage Dictionary defines style as “the way in which something is said or done, as distinguished from its substance” and “the combination of distinctive features of . . . expression, execution or performance characterizing a particular person, people, school, or era.”1 In the last analysis , people find their way into situations because of the harmony of the institutional culture with their personal styles. Much of the style of a movement is determined by its founders and, unless the movement is refounded at a later date, its initial style is hard to change, since like attracts like. Since the Conservative Movement went through two foundings, the first 100 years ago and the second under Solomon Schechter two decades later, both are reflected in the Movement’s style. SEPHARDIM AND LITVAKS The first founders of the Conservative Movement included an exceptionally high proportion of Sephardim or German Jews raised in 70 THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUDAISM Sephardic congregations (“the Philadelphia group”), while the founders who built the Movement as we know it today included an exceptionally high proportion of Litvaks (Jews from Lithuania and surrounding regions).2 Both of these are important elements in the Conservative equation. Given the Sephardic penchant for moderate traditionalism and openness to the larger world, it was hardly an accident that at the time traditional Judaism was splitting into Orthodox and nonOrthodox wings over the question of modernization and adaptation, so many of the Sephardic congregations or at least their leaders opted for modernization and adaptation. In that, they paralleled what was happening in the Old World in the nineteenth century, when the Ashkenazic (Jews from European countries) rabbinate was becoming increasingly inflexible, while the Sephardic rabbinate sought ways to accommodate the rapid social and technological changes of the age. The Sephardic influence in that sense may continue to be felt in establishing the fundamental principle of combining tradition and change, but it was a limited influence that was replaced by that of the Litvaks, a powerful group in general, headed in this case by powerful intellects. We can recognize several consequences that arose from this Litvak influence. One has already been mentioned, that is, the role of the JTS as a modern yeshiva. Another was the adoption of Nusah Ashkenaz as the basis for the Conservative siddur (prayer book) and the consequent disappearance of Nusah Sepharad—which is not Sephardic, but a kabbalistic (mystical)-Hassidic adaptation of the Sephardic minhag (custom )—from the non-Orthodox American Jewish community (this at a time when Israel was being settled by the children and grandchildren of Hassidim who brought an equivalent modernized and secularized Hassidic influence to that country). The predisposition to introduce decorum into the services in a rigid way also was present in the Litvaks , whose characteristic austerity could be translated into decorousness under the conditions of American society. It would be interesting to trace the backgrounds of those latter-generation Conservative Jews who introduced spirit and singing into the services to see where their forebears came from in Eastern Europe. In other words, the Conservative Movement developed a penchant for austere intellectualism on the part of its elites that became part of the style of the Movement. As the Litvaks gained in influence, the role of the Sephardim declined. We are not suggesting that this was a matter of cause and effect. In part, what happened is that the original Sephardic congregations that helped found the Seminary in 1886 decided to remain within the Orthodox fold when the Conservative Movement crystallized as a Style 71 separate one two decades later, hence their rabbis had to go with them. These Sephardic congregations continued to recruit rabbis from among JTS graduates as late as the 1950s. For example, Louis Gerstein became the principal rabbi at Shearith Israel in New York and Ezekiel Musleah the rabbi of Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, although the congregations themselves were affiliated with the Orthodox Union. Another opportunity to reach out to the Sephardim presented itself after World War II, when the leadership of the Sephardic congregations in the United States came to the Jewish Theological Seminary for support in training rabbis and functionaries for their congregations, preferring the Conservative Movement to Orthodoxy, but at that point...